I went to the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition looking for calm. It’s been an intense week; the semester is halfway over, which means the projects for my seminars need to be at a certain point of completion. When I saw that I had an hour-long pocket in my schedule on Tuesday, I decided to fill it with some Toulouse-Lautrec [...]

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with its musical audioguide. The first stop on the audio tour was a French statue of the Virgin and Child from the 14th century. The cult of the Virgin Mary was very common in both the visual and musical cultures of that time. This [...]

When I learned last year that the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts offered a musical audioguide, I believe I actually scoffed. A musical audioguide seemed like taking what can be a stereotypically unsexy museum offering and making it even more unattractive. I don’t know exactly what was expecting, perhaps being subjected to fuzzy elevator [...]

Historic châteaux differ from traditional museums in an important aspect: seasons. When I think about visiting most museums, I focus on what I’ll be seeing on the inside. But with historic châteaux and houses, I add in the factor of the time of year I will be visiting. I love making the pilgrimage to the Château de Malmaison during rose [...]

October's museum theme is CALM. All month, I'll be looking for moments of calm in museums, because #PhD... It's only been a month since I started my PhD program here in Montréal, but I'm already feeling a bit overwhelmed. My museum attendance has also been dwindling (moment of honesty: I've only been to one museum this month [...]

Is there anything more luxurious than slowly absorbing a sublime work of art? I can easily forget this. When I visit a new art museum, I can get in a manic state. I don’t want to miss anything, so I am tempted to methodically make my way through every gallery. And by seeing everything, I see nothing. So, when I gave myself three days to retreat in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I made a conscious effort to [...]

Exactly four years ago, I found myself in Denmark. I had just survived my first semester at the École du Louvre. The term had culminated with eight exams in five days; each exam was basically a choice between two broad questions with three hours to answer one of them. I celebrated my birthday with an exam [...]

I've been in Montreal for only four months, but my life in Paris already feels like another lifetime. I recently traveled to New York City (to visit the lovely Sara, another 'Expat American-Expat-in-Paris'), which obviously meant dedicating a significant amount of time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [...]

Some heritage is meant to be inhaled. Empress Joséphine’s roses at Malmaison are a prime example. Visually beautiful, yes, but their real power lies in their luscious perfume. Stick your nose in one of the enormous blossoms and you are instantly, and forcefully, transported. Certain blossoms were almost the end of [...]

I am really excited about the Poussin et Dieu exhibition at the Musée du Louvre. It is a solid exhibition, with clean, simple scenography and accessible interpretation. But—oh my goodness—are the artworks exceptional. It was an absolute pleasure to get lost in the masterful paintings, and to finally get why Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) is [ ... ]

This is part of Happy Places, a series about making the time to have experiences that bring you joy, but can be hard to justify with a busy schedule. The Musée Delacroix is so small that it is hard for me to justify return visits. If I am a Delacroix mood, I’ll make my way to the Louvre’s collection. But [ ... ]

This is part of Museum User Guides, a series with ideas for how to “use” museums. The activities suggested here propose a fresh way to understand and experience a particular collection. Life in Paris can be exhausting. From the agony that is a daily métro commute to the overall grumpiness of [ ... ]